Imagine the Apple Thunderbolt Display… without the display

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/90894-imagine-the-apple-thunderbolt-display-without-the-display

by ukdm • 15 years ago

39 49 15 years ago

allenp• 15 years ago

"You see, we are almost certainly moving towards a world where the only computer we own will be wearable, or simply a smartphone."

I just don't think that's true any time soon. Anyone that needs to type out a paper for school, for example, might need something more than a smartphone. Or someone that likes to read on screens larger than 4". Maybe the author is counting on holographic projection or the like?

mrsebastian5• 15 years ago

Read the next few sentences!

The whole point is that Thunderbolt will let you plug your smartphone into a keyboard (to write that paper), or a projector, video camera (FireWire), or an external RAID array (eSATA/PCIe) for that matter.

As soon as the Thunderbolt/Light Peak socket gets a little thinner, anyway :)

glhaynes5• 15 years ago

But is that really what people want? I don't want my phone being tied up being a CPU. I want to be able to pick it up (without unhooking any wires) at any time and make a phone call, walk around, etc. Or check Twitter on it while I'm working on my big screen. Just because it'll have enough processing power/storage capacity to be my "computer" doesn't mean I'd want it to - I still want both form factors.

jokermatt999• 15 years ago

So basically the Motorola Atrix?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G

jarek• 15 years ago

Back in my days, the future involved wireless keyboard and file access... But why do it with Bluetooth when you can do it shinier with Thunderbolt?

glhaynes5• 15 years ago

I agree that we're not moving to a world with only wearable/smartphone computers — why would we? Why would we not want tablets or laptops any more? And why would we want our devices to depend on each other (like a tablet or laptop that draws its processing power from one's wearable computer)? We'll continue to have devices in a variety of form factors (meeting a variety of human interface needs), but our data will be synced up via the cloud.

ianterrell• 15 years ago

The author, however clumsily, is noting that computing and interface are separate concerns.

We don't want "laptops," we want a clamshell keyboard and display for ergonomic reasons. Similarly, we don't want desktops, we want a keyboard and a large monitor. We don't want tablets, we want a medium sized interactive touch screen.

But I'd be no less happy if the actual computing was done in my pocket by my smartphone while I sat the dumb keyboard/display clamshell on my lap (it'd be lighter and cooler, too, I expect), or held the interactive screen in my hand, or typed on the keyboard resting on my desk.

In fact, I'd be much happier, because all the data would stay with my physically 24/7, like my phone already does. All of my separate form-factor input/output peripherals would be working with the same versions of apps and code.

On the other hand, if I lost it, I'd cry myself to sleep, so cloud backed up everything would be required. This makes it a not-ok choice for many people for many reasons (privacy, etc), but it's great for the average user doing average things.

I see it as a very real possibility that the smartphone will be the CPU, and all the other devices we have will get dumber and dumber.

riobard2• 15 years ago

“Anyone that needs to type out a paper for school, for example, might need something more than a smartphone.”

This might sound awkward, but it's actually doable on an iPad with the bluetooth keyboard connected for typing. Maybe not for complex math papers, but for English essays the setup is definitely very usable. I've tried.

haberman2• 15 years ago

Wouldn't it be nice if the Thunderbolt Display had an optical drive? Lack of an optical drive is one of the few things that makes me nervous about going the MacBook air route anytime soon.

chetan51• 15 years ago

Would you use it regularly, and if so, for what? For the offhand driver installs, you can always use Mac disk sharing.

haberman2• 15 years ago

Not regularly, no, just something I want to have available. Here are some things I still use an optical drive for:

    - ripping CDs of rare or out-of-print music.
    - burning CDs/DVDs of photos for friends who don't have a USB drive.
    - reading old CDs I have, like a CD of BeOS.

But I use it infrequently enough that maybe a peripheral is the way to go.

mrsebastian5• 15 years ago

That would basically make it an iMac... :D

chromium• 15 years ago

But consider, would you really need one? I thought the same thing when I explored purchasing the new 13" Air, until I realized that the last time I needed to put a DVD in my computer was 2008 and it adds way more everyday weight than it gives everyday use.

sukuriant2• 15 years ago

I've been (mostly) happy without my optical drive on my netbook for a while now. It's limited my operating system options, but I haven't really needed it aside from that. Most software I use (even games), does not require a CD anymore. It's just not as necessary. And when it is, you can buy an external cd drive for around $100

mikeash• 15 years ago

You can get an external one for the rare cases where it's necessary and you can't work around it.

jsz0• 15 years ago

There's always the option of using an external optical drive. With the TB display you could simply plug it into one of the USB ports and have it docked on your desk ready to go. The slim/portable optical drives out there are no huge burden to stash away in your backpack. I think we're past the point where it makes much sense to build the optical drive into a device. To me it feels like carrying around my toaster all day because I might want to have some toast later. (I make toast more often than I use my optical drive actually)

ugh• 15 years ago

Can’t you just buy some cheapo external USB drive† and stow it away for disc-related emergencies? For me just knowing that drives like that exist is enough, I know I can order them from Amazon and have them the next day. (Nowadays I only really use my optical drive to rip music I can’t get any other way. That happens maybe once a year or so.)

If you like watching DVDs while you are mobile I would definitely not recommend getting a PC without optical drive anytime soon – for obvious reasons. If you don’t, I really see no reason not to ditch the optical drive. All other use cases seem to be handled well enough by emergency external drives.

—

† Like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-External-Optical-SE-S084D-TSBS...

chc• 15 years ago

After the optical drive on my MBP broke, I came to the same conclusion. I never bothered to get it fixed, and since I have a spare external drive, it was never a problem.

michaelbuckbee• 15 years ago

Even if you like watching DVDs on your laptop you'd likely still be better off with a removable optical drive. Rip the discs to the hard drive and run them from there.

protomyth• 15 years ago

Personally, I like that it doesn't because there are actually better options than Apple is willing to sell. I like the OWC Mercury Pro (blu-ray, dvd, cd). It is a nicer option and can sit on the edge of the desk. On the new display, hooking it up to to the firewire 800 is a good option.

riobard2• 15 years ago

Optical drives are gonna be like floppy disks within a few years. Apple probably won't be bothered with it. The next iteration of MacBook Pros is likely to drop optical drives too.

sudont2• 15 years ago

I expect Matrox would be up for building it since they already have an established base for video switching.

However, I've always suspected that the iMac is the real successor to the Cinema Display line: Thunderbolt pass-through, internal video card. It'd take some engineering, but if anyone could do it, Apple could.

Plus, Apple's always interested in consolidating product lines with value-adds.

sandipc• 15 years ago

As far as I know, the 27" iMac already does video pass-through over mini-displayport/thunderbolt. I think it has to be turned on, though.

sudont2• 15 years ago

It does DisplayPort, which is a terminal connection. I'm thinking the new ones could use the thunderbolt bus to both initialize the internal video card, as well as pass through DisplayPort to another monitor.

kemiller• 15 years ago

I love that mini display port is now considered "chubby".

glhaynes5• 15 years ago

It wasn't too many years ago that I heard that they were working on standards for flash storage cards that were smaller than CompactFlash and I thought to myself: "What in the world is the point? CF is really small already!"

Unregistered3• 15 years ago

Why thunderbolt interconnect, and not wireless thunderbolt interconnect? We already have Wireless HDMI.

masklinn2• 15 years ago

> Why thunderbolt interconnect, and not wireless thunderbolt interconnect?

20Gb each way over the air? Good luck with that one. And the latencies are going to be ignominious.

> We already have Wireless HDMI.

WHDMI is not a 2-way data communication, latency matters far less when you're just streaming A/V to your television.

Unregistered3• 15 years ago

The article was meant to be forward looking -

"You see, we are almost certainly moving towards"

I don't think the vision is practical if you have to continuously plug/unplug your devices. The wirelessHD spec has theoretical data rates up to 25Gb.

Latency matters for user input ( keyboard/mouse) which is already accommodated at much lower bitrates, so I wouldn't expect it to be much of an issue.

napierzaza• 15 years ago

So... a laptop docking station. I know those haven't existed for Macs... but they do exist, right now.

rauljara• 15 years ago

Not sure exactly how long these have been around, but my boss has had one for four years, at least. http://www.bookendzdocks.com/

thought_alarm• 15 years ago

No, a laptop docking standard, among other things.

dkarl2• 15 years ago

For your next trick, Steve, please invent a tablet that is a docking station for an iPhone. One device, multiple form factors. I'd love to snap my iPhone into the back of a 10" screen so I can watch a move or read the paper. When I didn't feel like carrying the 10" screen around, I'd just take the phone out and leave the screen behind. When I felt like doing some work on the road, I could carry the 10" screen _and_ a bluetooth keyboard. At home, I'd connect my phone to a big beautiful monitor and a full-size keyboard. Concrete steps toward that vision is your best bet for keeping me buying Apple hardware now that there are good Android phones available and good Android tablets, too (if not now then soon).

One device, multiple form factors. One device to manage content and applications on, one device to sync, one device to always have with me. Any form factor I want. Sounds like a perfect way to spend the dividends of Moore's Law.

avdempsey• 15 years ago

That's actually the whole point of iCloud. You'll have separate devices--screens with an SOC--but they'll all behave just as you describe. Each device pushes your data up to the cloud where it bounces back to the rest. Three reasons why Apple will go this way rather than your transformer approach: -The utility is exactly the same -Each device's hardware will be designed to be itself, rather than a compromisotron -Apple gets to sell more devices

jjtheblunt• 15 years ago

"compromisotron" :) well said.

dkarl2• 15 years ago

Apple gets to sell more devices

This is Apple's top priority, so you're probably right. It assumes way too much about having a working internet connection, though[+]. When I'm reading a book or a movie and decide to switch to a different form factor, I don't want it to take a bunch of fiddling just to get back to where I was. Nor do I want to be stuck without a wireless connection and be stuck unable to download the app or data from one device to another. Without guaranteed communication between devices, they really will be different devices, with all the inconvenience and mental overhead that entails. Apple will have to implement peer-to-peer syncing over bluetooth or over a cable instead of depending on iCloud.

[+] I took a trip to Chicago over the weekend, and my 3G connection only worked a handful of times over four days. Coming from a city where AT&T provides excellent 3G service, it was a real shock to be reminded that you can't take connectivity for granted.

georgieporgie• 15 years ago

where is our Thunderbolt-enabled $500 Windows laptop or netbook?

Uh... The reason you get the Windows laptop for half the price is precisely because it doesn't have nifty hardware like Thunderbolt.

Imagine the Apple Thunderbolt Display… without the display

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